The most important fact about Iraq, by far, is that people are dying.(*) In the recent clashes between Al Maliki loyalists/U.S./British forces and Al-Sadr's Mehdi militia, close to 300 have died.(*) Since the war began, more than 4,000 Americans have died.(*) Thousands and thousands more Iraqis are dead.(*)
This endless war is a human catastrophe that, by the way, hasn't made the U.S. safer.(*) Although George W. Bush may continue to sleep well, many others cannot believe the slaughter that our invasion unleashed.(*)
For those of us who want to see this madness stop, it is necessary to be pragmatic. We have to(*)change the way people talk and think about what is happening in Iraq.(*) This sounds calculated and it is, in the sense that it(*)is a conscious decision to(*)emphasize facts in order to achieve a desired outcome –(*)an end to the dying in Iraq.(*) But(*)there is nothing disingenuous or misleading(*)about this.
I am not a policymaker, I do not have a vote in Congress, I do not have the president's ear.(*) But I can read and I can see when the traditional media fails in its basic duty, to tell us what is going on.
Too many media outlets allow the Bush administration to move the goalposts for measuring success(*)at will.(*) The administration has largely succeeded in getting the media to judge the success of the surge based on the success of American troops (or other factors) in reducing violence in Iraq.(*) But the surge is not a strategy in and of itself, it is a tactic that was designed, by Bush's own admission, in order to allow the Iraqi government to achieve specific goals, especially political reconciliation.(*)
Those goals, quite simply, have not been met.(*) Over the past few days, we have seen one part of the Iraqi government (Al Sadr's party holds 30 seats in the parliament) fighting another.(*) That's not reconciliation, it is civil war between armed factions of the government.(*)
Bush and McCain have a tired strategy of associating themselves with the troops, so that any criticism of Republican policy is morphed into a criticism of the troops.(*) There is a simple way to re-frame the debate: the troops have done their job, they have done everything that was asked of them by those who planned the surge.(*) It is the planners of the surge who failed.(*) The way to fix this is by electing leaders who understand why the surge was a mistake.

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